Life is forever changing, even when  it appears like nothing is happening. Just look outside to nature, every day something shifts, grows, dies, changes. As I age I have noticed these simple pleasures around me, encouraging to also morph, move, evolve and continue to change and adapt day by day. 

Perfection is rarely achieved. The perfect day, the perfect date, the perfect diet, does it even exist? We can only aim to do our best and make the most of every day, as perfectly as we see fit. Perfection is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, as for what may appear perfect to one would be absolutely imperfect to another. I have reached new levels of health and fitness discipline this year, and I am proud of my achievements so far. 

For so long I knew there were so many things I wanted to be doing to feel better, look better, but I was lazy in my approach. Do it tomorrow, can’t be bothered, or I just didn’t feel like it. Finally I called bullshit on myself and basically pulled my figurative finger out. And wow do I feel so much better for it. I want to share with you a few of my takeaways, and remind myself that every day we need to keep at it to feel good. 

Giving up alcohol. I know this is a hard one for so many people, but my experience has shown me the single biggest building block to build a great health and fitness routine starts with eliminating alcohol. I have lost count when I last had a drink, but it is close to 1.5 years ago. I just take it one day at a time, but quite honestly I feel so much better for not drinking. When you stop drinking, you eat better, you sleep better, and you are more motivated to get up in the morning early and exercise. When you drink you nibble and eat crap and higher fat foods, over consume, and that hangover is really hard to push through to exercise. It really is a no brainer. Personally I was over that fuzzy brain feeling and making perpetual excuses on healthy living, all those games in your head, that I just blanket quit the drink. Soda water is my friend now. And did I mention the financial savings? I estimate I spent approx. $200 a week when really getting stuck into it, and I am a tight arse, so that I know most people who like a drink would be doubling that. $200 a week = $10K per year. So far I have therefore saved about $15K over a year and a half, not to mention the money I saved on not eating crap food, so let’s bump that up to 20K for a guesstimate. I bet you could think of a few things to do with an extra 20K. Amazing right? Try it for yourself. And don’t even get me started on the fact alcohol is a class A carcinogen. Add some AFD’s to your schedule or just give it up, you won’t regret. The fat will fall off you, and your brain and bank balance will love you for it. 

Create good daily rituals. I identified a bunch of things that I love to do every day that I know make me feel awesome. Everyone will have a different list, but here are a few of mine to give you the idea: Read books, lift weights, take a bath, create art, swim laps, play tennis, cycle my bike, spend time in my garden, go to bed early by 9pm and up at 6am. You get the idea? And then make sure you add them to your daily routine. If you have to make a chart and tick it off every day that you manage to do something on your ritual list then so be it. Whatever it takes to start doing more of the things you love, you will feel better for it. Start making yourself a priority. Stop whingeing you don’t have time. Make time for yourself. Get up earlier, go to bed earlier, stop looking at your dumb phone. Turn the TV off. There really is plenty of time in a day, most of us waste a lot of it doing dumb shit. This is what fired me up. Distractions! Get rid of them!

Fasting. Intermittent fasting has been my absolute number one gem in losing weight and feeling better. I love it. I basically stopped eating breakfast. This was the beginning. Now it is pretty easy to fast about 16 hours a day. Ideally I aim to go longer. 18 hours to 20 hours is ideal. And getting down to OMAD, one meal a day a few days a week is even better. If you want to lose weight, stop bloody eating. It’s not rocket science! “Oh but I get so hungry”, fuck that. Push through that bullshit mindset. If you have fat to lose and you want to get serious about losing weight you really have to feel hungry sometimes. Your stomach will shrink and you will feel less hungry from fasting, eventually. True story. Weird I know. If you always have food in your belly your body will always pull from here for your energy source. If you have an empty tummy, guess what? Your body is clever and will go on a fat hunt and start to burn in places you always wanted to burn. It’s so clever. “Oh but I feel so hungry”, have a glass a water, a big one, multiple ones, drink some tea, but jeeze tell yourself you can do hard things. We are all spoilt brats sometimes. We live in such indulgent times. Create some scarcity in your life FFS. Being overweight comes with so many other complications in life. Putting more pressure on your joints, knees, etc, you feel like shit, get all moody and depressed, diabetes, heart attacks, the list goes on. Get down to your ideal weight, make that a real goal. You deserve to feel good and look good. Make it a priority. If you haven’t got your health what have you got? Stop making excuses. 

Cut out coffee and diet coke. I also gave up these two highly addictive evils. Coffee. The whole world seems to be obsessed with their next hit of caffeine. I decided I did not want to be a sucker to this drug anymore, and wow I feel so much better for it. I do not suffer from the highs and lows that caffeine creates. I think I sleep better, I am less agitated, less over stimulated and I have saved money and mental energy from not obsessing about my next caffeine hit. What a relief. Plus diet coke was also declared a carcinogen, even more reasons to stop drinking that stuff, as tasty as it is, it had to go. By eliminating coffee, it also led me to stop adding sugar to my life. I had one sugar every time I had a coffee. So that was about 4 to 5 sugars every day. That is a lot. Let’s say 30g. 210g per week, 850g per month, and let’s round up to 1kg as I always had just one and a bit. That’s 12kg a year. That has to be extra weight gain right there. Crazy right? True story.

I also increased my physical exercise routines and uptake of fresh fruit and veg. I really kept it simple to be quite honest. But it has worked, and I feel so much better. Now it is all about maintaining it and keeping even keel. And trying not to get too obsessed! Fasting is quite addictive I have to say. 

Okay I think that is enough health badgering for one blog. I hope that it has served to inspire and motivate you. Let me know if you have tried fasting, some of your health challenges, and if you are interested in some personal health/ fasting/life coaching please make contact with me. I would love to help you create some good new routines and talk you through making better choices for a better you and a better life. 

Anita 🙂